A quick note to say thanks to Rick for the kind mention on his blog check his work out here...
It's been a busy weekend - with Oxegen taking up 95% of my time... But still at the back of it the thought floats through your head of the people recovering from all the trauma that went on in London on Thursday...
On the way home tonight I was listening to the news and there was a police office talking about how the rescue crews were still working deep beneath the station, clearing debris and trying to recover any remaining bodies and the images of the dark tunnel and the heat and smells and horror that lurk there was just so vivid and disturbing...
And now, there's an Irish guy missing presumed dead and the thought of all the friends I have in London and how close some of them may have been to the events is only settling in to my head...
The subtlety of terror is the most frightening aspect of it... It's the fact that people have to get back on the Tube the next day, or get back onto an airplane, or go back into the shopping centre where the bomb exploded... That's the horrible insidious nature of it... and that's where the true evil lies...
It's not that terrorists want to kill as many people as possible - it's not a war, it's not about survival, they're not trying to hurt or injure people who can do, or have done harm to them... Terror is about getting inside our heads - about hurting normal people, random people who have nothing to do with the war in iraq or radical Islamic politics or any of the myriad of causes...
The evil cynical nature of tehse things is to hurt people who are not to blame, who don't expect it, who are doing normal things...
I'll never forget the moment that the second plane hit the World Trade Centre - that was the moment of terror... One plane, it could be an accident... You could live with the thought - accidents happen all the time... But when two planes hit the one complex in quick succession you know that it is a message - a message that says we can hurt you, any of you at any time...
It's the same principle of mass movement as drove the Live 8 event and Make Poverty History... Make enough people feel the same way about something and you force a change in the leadership... Two very different goals... the same means...
It's been a busy weekend - with Oxegen taking up 95% of my time... But still at the back of it the thought floats through your head of the people recovering from all the trauma that went on in London on Thursday...
On the way home tonight I was listening to the news and there was a police office talking about how the rescue crews were still working deep beneath the station, clearing debris and trying to recover any remaining bodies and the images of the dark tunnel and the heat and smells and horror that lurk there was just so vivid and disturbing...
And now, there's an Irish guy missing presumed dead and the thought of all the friends I have in London and how close some of them may have been to the events is only settling in to my head...
The subtlety of terror is the most frightening aspect of it... It's the fact that people have to get back on the Tube the next day, or get back onto an airplane, or go back into the shopping centre where the bomb exploded... That's the horrible insidious nature of it... and that's where the true evil lies...
It's not that terrorists want to kill as many people as possible - it's not a war, it's not about survival, they're not trying to hurt or injure people who can do, or have done harm to them... Terror is about getting inside our heads - about hurting normal people, random people who have nothing to do with the war in iraq or radical Islamic politics or any of the myriad of causes...
The evil cynical nature of tehse things is to hurt people who are not to blame, who don't expect it, who are doing normal things...
I'll never forget the moment that the second plane hit the World Trade Centre - that was the moment of terror... One plane, it could be an accident... You could live with the thought - accidents happen all the time... But when two planes hit the one complex in quick succession you know that it is a message - a message that says we can hurt you, any of you at any time...
It's the same principle of mass movement as drove the Live 8 event and Make Poverty History... Make enough people feel the same way about something and you force a change in the leadership... Two very different goals... the same means...
posted by Conformist No. 1 @ 10:39 p.m.
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